"I've always wanted to have kids, but I'm glad I didn't until now. When I was thinking about [working and being a mother] originally, I was really nervous about it," Danes admits. "I think I would make a lousy stay-at-home mom. It just wouldn't suit me. I feel so fortunate, in that I've had this arrow-straight focus that I wanted to act."

Danes fell in love with Dancy on the set of the 2006 movie Evening and it's been like a fairy tale ever since. "Hugh was just the right partner for me. I got very, very lucky," the actress gushes. "There's only so much credit you can take when it just sort of works, you know? And obviously we work hard at maintaining our relationship -- that is central to both our lives -- but at the same time, it's just this kind of ease that I can't really account for."

Carter Smith/ELLE

Despite their A-list status, the spouses still get starstruck -- most notably when they met President BarackObama during the White House Correspondent's dinner.

"Hugh was like, 'We have to meet Obama,' and we walked over before we could think and found ourselves shaking hands with him. Hugh realized that he'd forgotten to actually properly introduce himself, and [President Obama] was like, 'And you are?' And Hugh was like, 'I'm sorry, Mr. President,'" Danes tells ELLE. "I said, 'I'm Claire Danes,' and he said, 'Oh, you're a fine actress.' And I said, 'You're a fine president!' And he said, 'Oh, you're a finer actress than I am president.' I didn't have any retort."

Says Danes, "Hugh and I went immediately to the bar and had a big shot of vodka."

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